Worlds Apart

We were glad to have the opportunity to visit Ratanakiri (rat-ana-kiri) a few weeks ago, one of those places that everyone says is a must see and a beautiful place to go.

Ratanakiri is the furthest province in the north-east of Cambodia, home to lush landscapes, mountains, waterfalls, gem mining and 8 different ethnic minority tribes.

Although our trip to Ratanakiri was mainly for work purposes, we didn’t want to miss out on visiting the beautiful countryside the province had to offer. We were fortunate that our work arrangements meant that we had a chance to visit villages where ethnic minority people lived.

Getting to these villages was an experience in itself. On one occasion we went out with International Cooperation Cambodia (ICC) to visit a village they are working in. We were told that the road was bumpy but didn’t know just how bumpy until we drove on it in the back of a 4x4. Bumpy was an understatement! We went up and down, sloshing over mountains of mud, thinking on a few occasions that the 4x4 would topple over or get itself stuck in the mud. It was definitely an experience and lots of fun too.

After one and a half hours of travelling we arrived in the village, which was surrounded by beautiful luscious vegetation. It was a simple village lined with small leaf build houses where around 2,000 ‘ Tampuan’ minority tribes people lived. Unlike most Khmer people, the Tampuan are very shy and the kids peered around doors and through windows to look at us, but they didn’t dare come out to meet us.

While visiting the village we had the privilege of sitting in on a numeracy class for women in the village, meeting the village chief and learning how ICC had trained volunteer teachers in the village to pass on both their own language and the predominant Khmer language to others. It was all such a special experience and made me realise how fortunate we were to be there and witness what was taking place.

The most fascinating thing about the visit for me was seeing the place where the villagers take their daily showers, collected water and washed their clothes. They had made this amazing contraption from bamboo shoots, which channelled the water from a natural spring in the mountains and carried it down to individual shower cubicles in the valley.

I found it truly unbelievable that these people walked for 10 minutes down a dangerously steep hill every day to do something so simple, which we take for grated in our house back in Phnom Penh.

While we stood watching the villagers shower (!?!), I saw an old lady walk down the hill to collect water and take a shower. She was dressed in a traditional skirt and carrying a traditional basket on her back. She took her water container (the shell of a large, dried-out fruit) out of her basket and began cleaning it with a large leaf. She then went onto wash herself (while still fully clothed), using a small stick to scrub every inch of her body.

I was struck while watching her that her world and mine are so very far apart. While I’m in Phnom Penh or even back in the UK, this little old lady is living a life so simple, but yet so content. Her daily routine of going to the ‘bamboo shower’ are vastly different to the daily routines of my life, even a few hundred miles away in the city.

I just hope that the experience of seeing this woman and the other minority tribes people living in Ratanakiri will change the way I think about my everyday routines. I need to remember that there are more important things in life than making it as easy and comfortable as possible. (Laura)